The Celebrity Archaeology Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE 27 - Buddy Hackett and Ernest Borgnine

Buddy Hackett was an American
comedian and actor. His best remembered roles include Marcellus
Washburn in The Music Man (1962), Benjy Benjamin
in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963),
Tennessee Steinmetz in The Love Bug (1968), and
Scuttle in The Little Mermaid (1989).Hackett
was born in Brooklyn, New York to Anna and Philip Hacker, an
upholsterer and part-time inventor. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave
in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103. He
graduated from New Utrecht High School in 1942.While still a student, he began performing in
nightclubs in the Catskills Borscht Belt resorts as "Butch Hacker".
He appeared first at the Golden Hotel in Hurleyville, New York, and
he claimed he did not get one single laugh. He enlisted in the
United States Army during World War II and served for three years
in an anti-aircraft battery.Hackett's first job after the war was at the Pink
Elephant, a Brooklyn club. It was here that he changed his name
from Leonard Hacker to Buddy Hackett. He made appearances in
Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and continued to perform in the
Catskills. He acted on Broadway, in Lunatics and Lovers, where Max
Liebman saw him and put him in two television specials.Hackett's movie career began in 1950
with a 10-minute "World of Sports" reel for Columbia Pictures
called King of the Pins. The film demonstrated championship bowling
techniques, with expert Joe Wilman demonstrating the right way and
Hackett (in pantomime) exemplifying the wrong way. Hackett would
not return to movies until 1953, after one of his nightclub
routines attracted attention. With a rubber band around his head to
slant his eyes, Hackett's "The Chinese Waiter" lampooned the heavy
dialect, frustration, and communication problems encountered by a
busy waiter in a Chinese restaurant: "No, we no have sprit-pea soup
... We gotta wonton, we got eh-roll ... No orda for her, juss orda
for you!" The routine was such a hit that Hackett made a recording
of it, and was hired to reprise it in the Universal-International
musical Walking My Baby Back Home (1953), in which he was
third-billed under Donald O'Connor and Janet Leigh.Hackett was an emergency replacement
for the similarly built Lou Costello in 1954. Abbott and Costello
were set to make a feature-length comedy Fireman, Save My Child,
featuring Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Several scenes had
been shot with stunt doubles when Lou Costello was forced to
withdraw due to illness. Universal-International salvaged the
project by hiring Hugh O'Brian and Hackett to take over the Abbott
and Costello roles, using already shot footage of the comedy duo in
some long shots; Jones and his band became the main
attraction. [caption id="attachment_1069" align="alignright"
width="226"] Buddy Hackett in Its a Mad, Mad,
Mad, Mad World (1963)[/caption] Hackett became known to a wider audience when he
appeared on television in the 1950s and '60s as a frequent guest on
variety talk shows hosted by Jack Paar and Arthur Godfrey, telling
brash, often off-color jokes, and mugging at the camera. Hackett
was a frequent guest on both the Jack Paar and the Johnny Carson
versions of The Tonight Show. According to the board game Trivial
Pursuit, Hackett has the distinction of making the most guest
appearances in the history of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson. During this time, he also appeared as a panelist and
mystery guest on CBS-TV's What's My Line? and filled in as emcee
for the game show Treasure Hunt. He made fifteen guest
appearances on NBC-TV's The Perry Como Show between 1955 and
1961. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World "Smiler" Grogan (Jimmy
Durante), an ex-convict wanted by police in a tuna factory robbery
fifteen years ago and currently on the run, careens his car off
twisting, mountainous State Highway 74 near Palm Desert, California
and crashes. Five motorists stop to help him: Melville Crump (Sid
Caesar), a dentist; Lennie Pike (Jonathan Winters), a furniture
mover; Dingy Bell (Mickey Rooney) and Benjy Benjamin (Buddy
Hackett), two friends on their way to Las Vegas; and J.
Russell Finch (Milton Berle), an entrepreneur who owns the Pacific
Edible Seaweed Company in Fresno. Just before he dies (literally
kicking a bucket), Grogan tells the five men about $350,000 buried
in Santa Rosita State Park near the Mexican border under "… a big
W". Everyone experiences multiple setbacks on their way to find the
money. In the role of a lifetime,
Benjamin (Hackett-above far right) charters a modern plane at an
aviation club with MIckey Rooney, but when their wealthy alcoholic
pilot (Jim Backus) knocks himself out drunk, Rooney and Hackett are
forced to fly and land the plane themselves. Buddy Hackett's
penchant for lampooning is over the top in the scene of Rooney and
Hackett trying to fly a twin engine private plane. Hackett died on June 30, 2003, at his beach house
in Malibu, California, at the age of 78. His son, comedian
Sandy Hackett, said his father had been suffering from diabetes for
several years and suffered a stroke nearly a week before his death
which may have contributed to his demise. Two days later, on July
2, 2003, he was cremated and his ashes were given to family and
friends.Ernest
BorgnineErnest
Borgnine born Ermes Effron Borgnino was an American actor whose
career spanned over six decades. He was noted for his gruff but
calm voice, Machiavellian eyebrows, and gap-toothed Cheshire Cat
grin. A popular performer, he had also appeared as a guest on
numerous talk shows and as a panelist on several game shows.Borgnine's film career began in
1951, and included supporting roles in China Corsair (1951), From
Here to Eternity (1953), Vera Cruz (1954), Bad Day at Black Rock
(1955) and The Wild Bunch (1969). He also played the unconventional
lead in many films, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for
Marty (1955). He achieved continuing success in the sitcom McHale's
Navy (1962–1966), in which he played the title character, and
co-starred as Dominic Santini in the action series Airwolf
(1984–1986), in addition to a wide variety of other roles.Borgnine earned his third Primetime
Emmy Award nomination at age 92 for his work on the 2009 series
finale of ER. He was known as the voice of Mermaid Man on SpongeBob
SquarePants from 1999 until his death in 2012. He had earlier
replaced the late Vic Tayback as the voice of the villainous
Carface in both All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996) and All Dogs Go to
Heaven: The Series (1996–1998).Early lifeBorgnine was born on January 24, 1917, in Hamden,
Connecticut, the son of Italian immigrants. Borgnine's parents
separated when he was two years old, and he then lived with his
mother in Italy for about four and a half years. By 1923, his
parents had reconciled, the family name was changed from Borgnino
to Borgnine, and his father changed his first name to Charles.
Borgnine had a younger sister, Evelyn Borgnine Velardi (1925–2013).
The family settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where Borgnine
graduated from James Hillhouse High School. He took to sports while
growing up, but showed no interest in acting.He studied acting at the Randall School of Drama
in Hartford, then moved to Virginia, where he became a member of
the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia.[18] It had
been named for the director's allowing audiences to barter produce
for admission during the cash-lean years of the Great Depression.
In 1947, Borgnine landed his first stage role in State of the
Union. Although it was a short role, he won over the audience. His
next role was as the Gentleman Caller in Tennessee Williams' The
Glass Menagerie.In 1949,
Borgnine went to New York, where he had his Broadway debut in the
role of a nurse in the play Harvey. More roles on stage led him to
being cast for decades as a character actor.McHale's NavyBorgnine as Lieutenant Commander McHale in
McHale's Navy in 1963In 1962,
Borgnine signed a contract with Universal Studios for the lead role
as the gruff but lovable skipper, Quinton McHale, in what began as
a serious one-hour 1962 episode called Seven Against the Sea for
Alcoa Premiere, and later reworked to a comedy called McHale's
Navy, a World War II sitcom, which also co-starred unfamiliar
comedians Joe Flynn as Capt. Wally Binghamton and Tim Conway as
Ens. Charles Parker. The insubordinate crew of PT-73 helped the
show become an overnight success during its first season, landing
in the Top 30 in 1963.Like
the McHale character, Borgnine was a longtime navy man in real
life. He thrived on the adulation from fans for their favorite navy
man, and in 1963 received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead
Actor in a Comedy Series. At the end of the fourth season, in 1966
low ratings and repetitive storylines brought McHale's Navy to an
end.Tim Conway said about the
sitcom: "You know, we were all guys, it was about the war, and
about men, so, there weren't many women working on the show, so we
can spit, talk, swear, and everything—smoke? Gosh. So, it was male
oriented." Conway once referred to Borgnine making new friends off
of the Universal set, "It was the beginning of the trams, going
through Universal. Ernie was probably one of the few people at
Universal, who would stop the trams and say, 'Hello, how are you?'
He would talk to everybody at the tram." While the show McHale's
Navy was going strong, Tim had also said of Borgnine's short-lived
marriage to Ethel Merman, "Ernie is volatile. I mean, there's no
question about that; and Ethel was a very strong lady. So, you put
2 bombs in a room, something is going to explode, and I guess it
probably did." He also said about the cancellation of McHale's Navy
was, "We had gone from the South Pacific to Italy, and then, once
in a while, we got to New York or something. The storylines were
beginning to duplicate themselves. So, they actually said, 'Maybe,
they had its run!'". Conway kept in touch with Borgnine for more
than 40 years, while living not too far from one another. In 1999,
the duo reunited to guest-voice in several episodes of the popular
2000s animated comedy, SpongeBob SquarePants. Katy Jurado's death
in 2002 drew Borgnine and Conway much closer, as Tim had heard so
much of the actress's death. He said he heard his resisting friend
once referred to one of his ex-wives, "Beautiful, but a tiger."
After Conway lost his TV captain, he later said, if Borgnine was
more than likely to have died an Italian count, had it not been for
Mussolini, "I can't envision him as a count," Tim had also said
about McHale's Navy debuted, a half a century ago, boosting both
ABC and the Navy fortunes: "But maybe as a king---certainly not a
count." The last thing he said about his acting mentor's long
career: "There were no limits to Ernie," said Conway, "When you
look at his career---Fatso Judson to Marty, that's about as varied
as you get in characters and he handled both of them with equal
delicacy and got the most out of those characters.Borgnine died of kidney failure on
July 8, 2012 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,
California, with his family at his side. He was 95 years
old. Links: The Book: https://amzn.to/2HrXUUS The Podcast
on iTunes: https://apple.co/2HGtPQZ The Podcast
on Anchor: https://anchor.fm/celebrity-archaeology-podcast
The podcast on Google Play: http://celebrityarchaeologypodcast.com/gpm
The site: http://CelebrityArchaeology.com